Ugrisch und Penuti

The article deals with attempts to “connect” the Ob-Ugrian languages with the Penuti group of languages spoken in North America (California, Oregon etc.) in terms of a genetic relationship. Such attempts were undertaken by Otto J. v. Sadovszky (1925–2004), who considered the speakers of Penuti languages to be migrants from the Ob-Ugrian area in North Siberia; he tried to establish a new language family, which he and his followers called “Cal-Ugrian”. In the article, I first outline previous attempts to connect American Indian languages with Siberian languages, language families and groups of languages. I then present theories attempting to establish a relationship between the Uralic and the North American languages, as well as v. Sadovszky’s “Cal-Ugrian” theory; and demonstrate the weakness of the methods used by v. Sadovszky and his students.